Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I understand the minutes to which the Deputy refers are either minutes from committees that met at official level or minutes of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, many of which were made available to the Committee of Public Accounts and other committees many weeks ago. The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board is an agency that was established by the Oireachtas, empowered and given the statutory responsibility to design, build and equip the children's hospital. There are no politicians on that board or any of those committees and there are no political advisers on any of them. Once again this sounds like one of Deputy Martin's conspiracy theories. There are no politicians or political advisers on this board or any of those committees. If the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board had a PR or communications plan to explain the increased costs of the children's hospital, it did not do a very good job of it, quite frankly. I think we would all agree on that, given that it was not explained or communicated very well either to the Government or to the public thereafter.

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